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White Knight
"I've seen my gravestone. It reads XIV." The White Knights, named for the flames they can generate and the eerie white luminescence of their eyeballs, are intended to be TNAN's supreme trump card against hedge mages, dangerous sorcerers and demons. They are immune to arcane magic in all of its forms; spells cast on them simply collapse, magic missiles pass through them and don't appear on the other side, arcane explosions wash over them as though they never even happened. They were created by the Undead scientist and technomage Kessler McLutece, and while only thirteen of them currently exist, their numbers have already drastically changed the pace of the Network's engagements with sorcerers. While deeply unsettling, there's no argument against the fact these entities are revolutionary. As the first of their kind, the white knights work towards a goal many have set themselves over the years, but which none have truly achieved; to use their powers to bring magic to heel and ensure a disaster on the level of the War of the Ancients or the Scourge of Lordaeron can never happen again. Creation Selection Process Once Kessler had finished testing the creation process rigorously, fine-tuned the sarcophagus and devised a training programme, it was time to find candidates. He deployed several of his scientists to major cities with orders to use a combination of divination magic and hands-on investigation to isolate individuals with reasons to dislike arcane magic and mages in general and preferrably high intellects, physical strength and pre-existing combat training. Most of those earmarked were Human boys and orphans from Dalaran or Stormwind. Once the communicating scouts had chosen the twelve best individuals for the role, they openly interviewed them and explained the full extent of what they were All of the trainees were gathered in Fort XIV and designated squires. Their ages ranged from young teens to early adulthood, but none were older than twenty. They then began a convoluted and grueling regime of drills and exercises devised by the ferocious Kaldorei Chara Ashwing, who was dismissed and banished for killing several Alliance mages who flagrantly cast their spells in Ashenvale and disobeyed her orders to stop and leave. Their training was intense; they had precisely half an hour off every day, and no more. Chara forced them to adhere to a military timetable with no allowance for tardiness, and contrived complicated tests of strength, speed and logic to sharpen their bodies and minds. She taught them to work fluidly as a team, placing them in situations where they were forced to rely on each other, and showed them how to communicate without words in the thick of distraction. Weapons training was of a wide range; she taught them all swordplay, and as her skills as a teacher and fighter far exceeded those of Human knights, so to did the speed with which her charges improved. Archery was secondary in focus, as Chara deemed the ability to fight at a distance of significant importance when dealing with mages. She also taught them the rudiments of battle with spears, hammers, axes, maces, flails, knives, slings, guns, so that they could put these weapons to use if they lost their swords and so that they would know how to deal with them in combat. They were also educated on a basis individually catered to each of them by Kessler on a combination of history, geography, mathematics, arcane language, etiquette and most importantly, chivalry. He told the squires that without a code of honour, nothing they did would truly make a difference in the world, and that in order to change the minds of the peoples of Azeroth they needed to inspire admiration as well as fear. Chara approved of this sentiment and rewarded the squires whenever she noticed them making references to the code of chivalry or following it. Training Alchemical Augmentation The Sarcophagus Abilities Immunity White fire Strength Altered metabolism Disabilities Appearance Equipment Additional Information Current White Knights *Commissar Viktor Hagan Henderson's Team *Knight-Sergeant Graham Henderson *Sir Joshua Cain *White Knight *White Knight *White Knight *White Knight 's Team * *Sir Reimond "Ray" Quinnet *White Knight *White Knight *White Knight *White Knight White Pages The alchemical and dimensional augmentations performed on the white knights do not render them sterile. As the aperture that renders them magically void exists in every one of their cells, and is replicated when a cell divides, Doctor McLutece has predicted that if any of them were to procreate the effects would carry on to their offspring, effectively making their powers hereditary. What he is not entirely sure of is whether or not the children of a white knight and a normal Human or other race would be a fully blown white knight or not; he believes there is a high likelihood that the aperture would "infect," the entire zygote early in pregnancy rather than producing a mixture of normal cells and apertured cells, although his calculations also indicate there's a possibility in the wide range of factors- the gender of the white knight parent, where they are, how much a white knight mother has used her powers and how much she uses them during pregnancy, various genetic conditions, etc -that this could happen at such a slow rate that normal, arcane magic-accepting cells would remain in the body all through life, opening up the possibility of pseudo-white knights with varying degrees of immunity and arcane disability. Kessler's associates have noticed an odd air of contentment about him when the subject comes up- as though he is profusely satisfied that he has successfully created a truly antimagical breed that has the potential to propagate itself indefinitely.